When I tell most people that my first profession was in the field of education, I am often greeted with disbelief. Questions such as “How did you go from teaching to technology?” often follow the initial shock, and increasingly I am beginning to understand why this happens. Before I discuss these reasons, I will first give a brief overview of my professional background.

When I graduated from college (the equivalent of university-level education in the United States), I did not have a firm idea of what type of career I wanted, or even the area that I wanted to work in. Desperate to get a job and limited in my available options given my majors in Spanish and Philosophy, I took advantage of an opportunity to receive on-the-job training while working as an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher.

During my first year as a teacher, I was able to work with students from Asia, Africa and Central America. While I derived a lot of joy from this role, the endless testing and the feeling that most of my students were being treated as second-class citizens made me take the decision to leave this job, but not teaching altogether.

Acting on the advice of a friend who was completing a teaching stint in South Korea, I began searching for my first teaching position abroad. To me, this was a surprising yet exciting prospect for my budding teaching career since I had always wanted to travel more and had a deep appreciation for learning about other cultures. As it turns out, my role in South Korea then led to other positions in Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, before returning to the United States, and then heading off to Europe.

Having had fairly diverse opportunities in terms of the geographical contexts I worked in as well as the education levels I taught, I can say that I matured in my understanding of what education and learning is, but also began to think about possible ways that education and learning might be extended to or improved for people who did not presently have access to it. Chance helped set me on my present path when I took a Master’s level course called Technology in Education. It was on this course that I discovered that the mobile phone could be used as a learning medium.

Obligatory plug for my amazing alma mater!

It is safe to say that after that course, I became engrossed by the potential of mobile telecommunications, especially after my experiences in Equatorial Guinea and Madagascar. In one summer I read any and all things that I could about mobile learning, but then also read about issues and links between gender and technology. This dizzying journey led me to come in contact with one of my professional mentors, Dr. Nancy Hafkin. And the rest is history!

When I met with Nancy, I explained my interests and shared with her some of my emerging work and writings in gender and mobile technology. The encouragement I received from her propelled me on, and she soon introduced me to Sonia Jorge, my second professional mentor. I owe much of my present successes to these two women for giving me the opportunity to enter the world of tech despite not having any background or professional training in the field.

They provided support, a network of like-minded contacts, as well as advice on how to make the most out of a field that historically has not been very balanced from a gender perspective. Now, I have been enjoying a career in mobile telecommunications for the past six years, but maintain strong ties to my teaching roots.

Here’s some advice I can give to others who are looking to transition from their present career into one involving tech:

1. Decide on what area of technology you want to work in, then reach out to people who have similar roles. Having mentors were priceless for me, and I think they went a long way to help make my transition successful.

2. Become an expert in the area of technology that you want to work in. While I don’t believe you need to earn a formal qualification to do this, it certainly does not hurt. However, you can also read as much as possible on your own about the subject, and write and share blog posts illustrating your knowledge. People will eventually notice.

3. Help others on your way up in the tech world. The most inspiring part of my journey has been receiving support from pioneers in gender and technology. Now that I am established in tech, I do the same for others – and you should, too, whenever you can!

I am typing this out from Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi reflecting on the past week spent with the good people of UN Habitat, specifically those associated with the CityRAP tool. The CityRAP tool trains city managers and municipal technicians in small to intermediate sized cities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to understand and plan actions aimed at reducing risk and building resilience through the elaboration of a City Resilience Action Plan.

A few caveats at the onset here. This reads a bit more like an academic piece which it largely is. It is drawn from something larger I wrote a bit ago for another paper. It might also read like an attack on the SDGs, which is not my point. The point here is that the SDGs have generated some incredible results and I sincerely support them, but we must be mindful of what is being mobilised in our pursuit of them. My focus is education and I suggest that the provisions of the SDGs related specifically to that field suggest particular scaled interventions (or at least make those approaches particularly attractive). Scale exacts pressure on particular types of education.

As part of my association with the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh (a version of this post appears there as well), I recently traveled with colleagues to deliver a three day workshop on digital education for Syrian academics who have been displaced by the conflict. The University has worked for a long time with the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), a great organisation providing urgently-needed help to academics in immediate danger, those forced into exile, and many who choose to work on in their home countries despite serious risks.

We seem to have endless ideas on how to use Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). From job creation to women’s empowerment to civic participation, a number of ICT4D interventions have been developed and implemented over the years. Common question asked in my work is “what type of technology that might have biggest impact in our society in the coming years?”. As we have learned, ICTs in itself aren’t sufficient. While factors contributing to the success of ICT4D have become apparent, and many have written about them, I feel there's still a need to highlight some of them.

We have been some of the most vocal critics of Bridge International Academies (BIA), largely because most investigations and evaluations of their edtech impact to improve schooling in sub-Saharan Africa have been less than spectacular (many would say the impact is non-existent). So imagine our surprise to see Wayan Vota's latest ICTworks™ post highlighting the successes of BIA in Liberia.

We need to make women in innovation more visible, and correct the gender imbalance in the stories we tell. We need to tell more stories about the women working at the top of humanitarian innovation, and so today I sat down with Tanya Accone, Senior Advisor at UNICEF Innovation, to tell the story of a woman working at the top of a very visible humanitarian innovation team for a very visible humanitarian agency.

We do a lot of work on open learning as well and it was clear there was tension between these open educational platforms (like Coursera, edX, etc.) and their use in local contexts, particularly in emerging economies. There is tension there. Open educational technologies are too often framed as a transparent instrument for educational export, keeping (specifically Western or Global North) curricula, pedagogy, and educational values intact whilst they are broadcast to a global population in deficit.

I remember when I first started hearing the buzz about bots. My first thought? 'Here we go again...' - a reaction to the endless cycles of hype followed by business-as-usual that typifies the digital sector. However, over the past few months I've had the opportunity to design a few 'bots 4 good', and I'd like to share what I've learned: how they work, what they could be useful for, and where to start if you'd like to get one. I believe that done well, they could be really useful add-ons to your digital strategy as they provide a rich 'in-between' space for mobile users who aren't fully digitally literate.

Last week, I was at TICTeC 2018 where researchers, activists and practitioners discussed the impact of civic technology, or civic tech. This blogpost summarises the discussion of Two heads are better than one: working with governments.